For service businesses in Thailand, LINE is a second shopfront. Customers message to ask prices and free times, send a photo of the haircut they want, and agree on a day in the chat. So the obvious question is: if your customers are all on LINE anyway, can they just book through LINE, without you answering each chat?
They can. But it helps to know what a LINE Official Account (LINE OA) does by itself, and what needs a booking system alongside it. This guide goes through it honestly, one piece at a time. If you’re a foreign owner, it also explains a few LINE things that Thai owners take for granted.
What a free LINE OA can do
A LINE OA is LINE’s business account. It’s free to open and has tools a small business can really use.
- Chat with customers, from your phone or a computer, with several staff answering.
- A greeting message, sent when someone adds you as a friend.
- Auto-replies by keyword: a customer types “price” and gets your price list.
- A rich menu: the picture menu under the chat. A tap can send a message, open a link or open a web page.
- Broadcasts to all your friends, or a group of them.
- LINE’s own coupons and reward cards, for simple promotions.
All of this is great for talking to customers, and you should keep using it. The catch is that a LINE OA doesn’t know your schedule. It can’t tell whether Nid is free tomorrow at 14:00, so it can’t book for you.
Taking bookings with LINE OA alone
Businesses that use only LINE OA usually work like this:
- A “Book” button in the rich menu sends “I’d like to book” into the chat.
- An auto-reply asks which service, which day and what time.
- Someone reads the chat, checks the notebook or calendar, and replies to confirm.
- The day before, someone types a reminder to each customer.
That works when bookings are few, and you get to talk to customers. But every step still needs a person. Reply slowly and some customers book with whoever replied first. Forget a reminder and customers forget the booking.
LINE message costs: know this before you choose
LINE OA messages come in two kinds, and that’s where costs differ.
- Replies: answering a customer who wrote first. These don’t count against your quota.
- Push messages and broadcasts: messages you send without the customer writing first, like a reminder. These count against your monthly message quota.
The free LINE OA plan includes a limited number of outgoing messages each month; past that, you upgrade to a paid plan. The numbers and prices change from time to time, so check LINE’s own pricing page.
Every reminder is an outgoing message. A business with 300 bookings a month that sends two reminders each uses about 600 messages a month on reminders alone. When a booking system sends messages through your own LINE OA, always ask who pays for them. With some systems, you pay LINE yourself, on top of the system’s price.
What LIFF is, and why LINE booking uses it
LIFF (LINE Front-end Framework) is a web page that opens inside LINE. A customer taps a button in the chat and the booking page opens right there: no switching to a browser, no app to download.
The big win is that the page knows who the customer is from their LINE account (with their permission). They don’t type a name or create an account, and you know the booking came from the same customer who came last month.
So most LINE booking systems work like this:
- 1Tap "Book"in your rich menu
- 2A LIFF page opens in LINEwith your services and real free times
- 3Pick a time and bookno typing a name, no account to create
- 4A confirmation arrivesthen a reminder before the day
LINE OA alone vs LINE OA + a booking system
| LINE OA alone | LINE OA + booking system | |
|---|---|---|
| Customer sees free times | Asks in chat | Sees them on the booking page |
| Booking outside your hours | Waits for your reply | Any time |
| Double bookings | You check | Stopped by the system |
| Confirmation | Typed by hand | Automatic |
| Reminders | Typed by hand | Automatic |
| Moving or cancelling | Message in chat | A button on the booking’s page |
| Customer history | Scroll the chat | In your customer list |
| Chatting with customers | Fully | Fully, as before |
The last row matters. Adding a booking system doesn’t mean giving up the chat. Customers who want to ask first still message you; customers who know what they want book themselves in a minute.
When LINE OA alone is enough
- A few customers a day, and someone always free to answer.
- Every job needs a conversation first, like design work or services at the customer’s place.
- A small group of regulars who all know you.
When to add a booking system
- Answering “are you free?” leaves no time for the work itself.
- Several staff, each with their own free times.
- No-shows keep happening (see how to stop no-shows).
- Customers from abroad who don’t use LINE.
- You want customer history, a CRM in LINE or a stamp card.
How to add a booking button to your LINE OA
Whichever system you use, the steps in LINE OA Manager are much the same.
- Copy your booking page link from the booking system.
- In LINE OA Manager, open Rich menus, create one, pick a template, and set one area to “Link” with your booking link.
- Put the same link in your greeting message, so new friends see it straight away.
- Add an auto-reply for words like “book”, “booking”, “free” (and the Thai จอง, คิว, ว่างไหม) that sends the link.
- Put the same link on your Facebook page, Instagram and Google Business Profile.
Tip: a button that says “Book” in words works better than an icon alone. Customers shouldn’t have to guess.
Frequently asked questions
Does LINE OA have booking built in?
LINE OA has chat, auto-replies, rich menus, coupons and reward cards. Booking that knows your free times and stops double bookings comes from a booking system, linked in by a link or a LIFF page.
Do customers have to add the account as a friend before booking?
It depends on the system. A good booking page lets them book straight away, and invites them to add the account to get confirmations and reminders in LINE.
Do LINE reminders cost money?
Reminders are outgoing messages, so they count against the quota of the account that sends them. If they go from your own LINE OA, you pay once you pass the free quota. Ask the booking system before you choose.
Can customers without LINE book?
If the booking page is a web page, yes: they open it in a browser and book with their email. That suits tourists and customers from abroad.
Booking through LINE with Tellfox
TellfoxOfficial accountLINETellfox lets customers book, move and cancel in LINE, while you keep chatting with them in your own LINE OA as before.
- A Book button in your own LINE OA: put your Tellfox booking link in your rich menu and greeting message. The page opens in LINE and knows the customer from their LINE account.
- Confirmations and reminders come from Tellfox’s LINE account, with your business name and logo on every card. They go from Tellfox’s own LINE account, so you don’t pay LINE for them yourself.
- An “I’ll be there” button on reminders. You see who has confirmed, and get a list of who hasn’t, with a call button.
- Service links in a tap: the Links button in the owner menu gives you a card for each service with a Copy link button, ready to paste into a customer’s chat.
- Run it by message: tell the AI assistant “close tomorrow afternoon” and see a preview, with the affected bookings, before you confirm.
- Customers without LINE book on the web and get confirmations by email, in English or Thai.
For the bigger picture on every way to take bookings, see the online booking guide. For walk-ins, the same LINE alerts run a queue: see the online queue system guide.
Try it now: send a photo of your price list to Tellfox in LINE and see your own booking page in seconds. Try it